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Internet Archive (archive.org), 2026-10-08

Investigator run 1, Jeans-JH. Access: scripted (advancedsearch API and _djvu.txt full-text downloads by curl), found through Chrome Google searches. Saved page texts are in research/pages/ (evidence trail, not published).

Searches

  • advancedsearch: creator:(Jeans, J. H.) OR creator:(Jeans, James) (100 rows): lists Jeans's books 1904-1954, including 1916 Dynamical Theory of Gases 2nd ed. (dynamicaltheoryo00jeanuoft), Math. Theory of Electricity and Magnetism 5th ed. 1927 (5thedmathematica00jeanuoft).
  • advancedsearch: title:(radiation quantum) AND (Jeans): Report on Radiation and the Quantum-Theory, 1914 (cu31924012330407) and 2nd ed. 1924 (bwb_W9-CSF-029, a lending item whose djvu text was downloadable).
  • Google (Chrome) led to two further IA texts: The Chemical News vol. 134 (1927) (in.ernet.dli.2015.232092) and Phil. Mag. 6th series vol. 2 (1901) (londonedinburgh621901lond).

Findings

1. Jeans, The Dynamical Theory of Gases, 2nd ed., 1916 (priority 1, inventor's own work; bears on claims 1-2)

URL: https://archive.org/details/dynamicaltheoryo00jeanuoft [web] - Preface to the second edition: since the first edition "the position of the Kinetic Theory has been to some extent revolutionised by the growth and developments of the Quantum Theory". Jeans says he confined the Quantum Theory to the last chapter (Ch. XVIII "Radiation and the Quantum Theory", p.398) and let "the difficulties arising out of the classical treatment" emerge in earlier chapters "but have been left unsolved". He also says the book "has been very extensively rewritten". [web, pages/dynamicaltheoryo00jeanuoft.txt lines 95-135] - Ch. I (§7 area): the internal-vibration difficulty "formed a most serious hindrance to the progress of the Kinetic Theory for many years. Attention was drawn to them by Maxwell, but it was not until the introduction of the Quantum-theory by Planck... that it was possible to give anything like a satisfactory explanation... It is at best only partial, but must, so far as it goes, probably be regarded as satisfactory." He quotes Kelvin's "Nineteenth-century Clouds" and says the second cloud "has already to a great extent been dissipated by the development of the Quantum-theory". [web, lines 505-520, 850-862] - Aggregation chapter keeps one trace of the 1904 idea: energy "dissipated into the ether" during an encounter is mentioned as a possible cause of molecular aggregation and set aside, because the equations "rest upon the assumption of conservation of energy". [web, lines 13320-13340] - Bearing: Jeans's own 1916 verdict on his 1904 dissipative explanation. He replaced it with the quantum explanation in the second edition. This is the inventor's documented change of position, not an outside judgement. Leads for the reviewers: read the 1916 Ch. XVIII to see how he now frames the 1904 slow-transfer argument.

2. Jeans, Report on Radiation and the Quantum-Theory, 1914 (priority 1; claims 1, 2, 5)

URL: https://archive.org/details/cu31924012330407 [web] - §17: classical mechanics predicts "all the energy of the matter will be dissipated away into radiation in the ether... It is to escape from this necessary consequence of the classical mechanics that the quantum-theory has been brought into being." [web, lines 1365-1378] - §18: reports the 1913 British Association discussion at Birmingham ("British Association Report" 1913, p.385), where "the quantum-theory is far from being regarded as inevitable yet by many of the English school of physicists", and quotes Sir J. Larmor and Prof. Love defending classical dynamics. [web, lines 1380-1405] (Larmor and Love are leads for priority 3: contemporaries who kept classical explanations.) - §19: his own slow-transfer argument is restated against Love's infinite series: the time for energy to reach the short-wave terms "becomes a matter of millions of years", with a footnote to "The Dynamical Theory of Gases, Chapter IX". He also cites his modified formula when high-frequency radiation is "drained off". [web, lines 1570-1640]

3. Jeans, Report on Radiation and the Quantum-Theory, 2nd ed., 1924 (priority 1; claims 5, 7; supplies sources the 1925 lecture leaves out)

URL: https://archive.org/details/bwb_W9-CSF-029 (lending item; djvu text downloaded) [web] - §85: "The quantity hV is of the physical dimensions of the square of an electric charge. In point of fact, [h C/2pi?] is nearly equal to (4 pi e)^2, i.e. to the square of the strength of a tube of force binding two electrons. This suggests that the atomicity of h may be associated with the atomicity of e." The OCR loses the prefactor. He adds that the atomicity of e "will not lead to the quantum-theory, for if it did the quantum-theory would have been fully developed long ago". He credits the tubes-of-force picture to Sir J. J. Thomson ("Recent Researches", 1892). [web, lines 5455-5482] So the 1925 claim 7 is already in print in 1924, in a more cautious form. - §86: Einstein's light-quantum hypothesis "has been unable to gain acceptance owing to its obvious conflict with the well-established principles of the undulatory theory of light." He quotes Lorentz at length (BA Birmingham 1913; also Lorentz, Phys. Zeitschr. 11, p.349, 1910): interference over "some millions" of wavelengths means each quantum must be long, and a wide telescope aperture must be filled by each quantum. G. I. Taylor's feeble-light photographs needed "an exposure of 2,000 hours". The footnote gives Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 15, p.114 (1909), at an intensity of about one light-quantum per 10,000 cc. "A further experimental test by G. P. Thomson" is cited as Proc. Roy. Soc. 104A, p.115 (1923). [web, lines 5490-5565] - §87: "it is now generally accepted that in regions in which matter is absent radiation is propagated in accordance with the classical laws of Maxwell... It is matter, and not ether or radiant energy, which proves to be different from what we had thought." He also says an electron in a radiation field cannot feel the force Xe, "for if it were, an electron placed in a field of radiation would be absorbing energy otherwise than by complete quanta". [web, lines 5565-5600] This is the same position as the 1925 lecture's "no acceleration" passage, one year earlier. - §(near eq. 73): "The physical process must, however, be reversible": absorption mirrors Bohr emission. [web, lines 3330-3350] - Bearing: the 1925 lecture's uncited items (Lorentz 1906/1910, Taylor's 2000 hours, the tube-of-force h-e relation, the field X that does not accelerate a free electron) all appear in Jeans's own 1924 Report, with references. The new element in 1925 is the time-symmetric (advanced plus retarded) solution. A search of the 1924 text for "convergent" and "advanced" found nothing relevant.

4. Jeans, The Mathematical Theory of Electricity and Magnetism, 5th ed., 1927 (priority 1; claim 4)

URL: https://archive.org/details/5thedmathematica00jeanuoft [web] - Preface to the 4th edition (Dorking, December 1919): "the addition of a wholly new chapter on the Theory of Relativity" (Ch. XX). Preface to the 5th edition: changes "called for by the now established position of the new theories of relativity and quanta", plus a new chapter "The Electrical Structure of Matter". Thanks are given to "Professor E. P. Adams" among others. [web, lines 160-205] - Ch. XX §670 opens "Motion through the Ether" and treats the Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction as a hypothesis that relativity then supersedes (§§670-675). [web, lines 39604-39760] - §665-666 (1927): Kaufmann 1906, then "Bucherer, Bestelmeyer and others shew that m0 + m1 varies precisely as (1 - u^2/C^2)^-1/2. This is in exact agreement with the transverse mass of the Lorentz contractile electron if m0 is taken to be zero — i.e. if the mass of the electron is supposed to be wholly electromagnetic." He derives a = 1.874 x 10^-13 cm from m = 9.00 x 10^-28 g, with e/m 1.767 x 10^7 emu (Bucherer) and Millikan's e = 4.774 x 10^-10 esu. [web, lines 39425-39460] - Bearing on claim 4: by 1919 Jeans added relativity to the textbook, so the 1911 text's ether-only stance was revised by Jeans himself. The electromagnetic-mass reading of Bucherer is still printed in 1927, so that part of claim 4 continued in his later editions.

5. E. P. Adams, "The Electromagnetic Effects of Moving Charged Spheres", Phil. Mag. [6] 2, pp.285-299 (1901) (priority 2/4; the experiment behind the 1925 lecture's Adams argument, claim 6)

URL: https://archive.org/details/londonedinburgh621901lond [web] - Author "Edwin P. Adams", signed at the "Jefferson Physical Laboratory, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass." [web, lines 17990-18000, end of paper] - The apparatus: "two sets of spheres, sixteen in each set", spun from sheet copper into hemispheres and soldered together, on brass rods screwed into collars on an axle, the two sets insulated by a hard-wood bar. Charge came through copper brushes from a storage battery of "10,000 cells". Speeds were up to 75-85 revolutions per second. The magnetic system was enclosed in a brass tube with a tinfoil-coated glass bottom. The purpose: the magnetic effect of convection (Rowland 1876; Lecher 1884; Cremieu 1900-01), with the use of charged spheres suggested by J. J. Thomson in 1881. Conclusion: "The agreement between theory and experiment is fully as good as could be expected." [web, lines 18000-18800] - Bearing: Jeans in 1925 calls them "charged brass spheres". The paper says the spheres were copper on brass rods. The experiment measured the magnetic effect of moving charge (convection current); it did not measure radiation. The radiation figure is Jeans's own calculation, as the deep read inferred.

6. The Chemical News vol. 134, 4 March 1927, pp.129-130: F. H. Loring, "Radiation and the Photo-Electric Effect" (priority 2; contemporary uptake of claim 6)

URL: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.232092 [web] - Loring writes that present-day opinion favours quantum energy being manifest "only... when the atom absorbs or emits radiation", and that in free space wave energy "obeys the classical wave-theory". He then says: "Dr. Jeans suggested in his Rouse Ball lecture (see 'Atomicity and Quanta,' 1926...) that the principle of reversibility or convergence might be introduced. This means that a highly diluted [h nu], so to speak, as a spread-out wave, may in a reverse way converge on the atom and thereby satisfy the quantitative relation necessary to give the photo-electron the particular energy... to escape." He compares it with collapsing magnetic flux concentrating energy in a conductor ("yet it looks promising"). He then proposes his own trigger mechanism, in which inner electrons move closer to the nucleus. He closes: "Jeans does not put forward the convergence idea as a solution of the problem", and quotes the lecture's last sentence. [web, pages/chemnews.txt lines 22780-22935] - Bearing: a 1927 reader takes up the convergent-wave photoelectric idea as a live option. Loring is a minor figure (a Chemical News contributor on X-ray lines and element synthesis); stake: none evident.

Not found / limits

  • The 1924 Report text was not searched for Wien's H-alpha decay time; the index lists only "Wien, 19".
  • No IA copy of Atomicity and Quanta itself (the project already holds the PDF).